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Mother’s upbringing and example

What is hidden behind the word mother?

The man says that she is his life guide, the one who takes care of his household children, cleans laundry, helps him raise children, and the like.

The children will say: She is the one who gave me life, who takes care of me both spiritually and materially, who loves me more than herself, and so on.

Society will say that the mother is the legal representative of the child and the first person close to the child.

The Church says about the mother that she is the one who gives not only physical life but also spiritual life. He takes care of both earthly and eternal education.

Today, on the feast of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, we read about a widowed mother from the town of Naim whose only Son, who was already dead, was resurrected by Jesus.

What the Naima woman felt when she accompanied her dead Son, only a mother who has already experienced this pain from the death of a child knows best. When Jesus met her, his heart trembled and moved with compassion, and he said: “Don’t cry!” (Lk 7:13). This event is described by the evangelist Luke, who is the only one to explain things, and it is assumed that he got them from the Virgin Mary. Mary also knew pain as she stood under the cross at the death of her Son.

Don’t cry! These words are relevant many times, even today, not in the physical death of the mothers’ sons, but even more so in the mental death. Who will count the number of tears of mothers when their sons are physically healthy, but their souls are not healthy?! When sin made their soul’s dead souls. The mother sees her Son healthy, and his soul is dead for eternity. The mother who brought him into the world and wants him to be with her in eternity when she sees how her Son rejects eternal life is the most unhappy Catholic mother. This pain is much greater than the pain of a mother’s Son dying physically. She knows that he died reconciled to God and has hope of meeting him with God. But what about the death of the soul? We had the holiday of St. Ludovic. His mother, Saint Blanca, often told him: – I would rather see you physically dead than with one grave sin. – How sad it is to meet mothers indifferent to their sons’ souls. How painful it is when a mother still advises her child to sin when she encourages him to sin, when she defends his sin, and so on.

This does not match Saint Monica’s behavior. Someone will say that he knows everything about her:

• How she endured wrongs from her mother-in-law.

• She also talks about how she helped her husband find peace of mind.

• How she prayed for her Son Augustín for sixteen years.

It’s a shame they know it but don’t follow her example. They would know what a wonderful feeling it is to wait for death. She died in Ostia, near Rome, far from her native Carthage. However, she died in the arms of her Son, no longer an errant Manichean, but the Son of a priest and a bishop.

Today’s world needs new Monicas. We need women, mothers, and brides who look not only with the eyes of the body at the people around them but also with the eyes of faith. It is beautiful when a woman, mother, and daughter-in-law knows how to take her place in the house, family, and society. It is valuable when such a woman knows how to defend her place even before the community of believers – the Church, especially before her conscience and God. St. Monica today teaches modern women an old but still modern Christian principle: Let us live so that none of us will be separated on the last day. Today, it is appropriate for women, mothers, and brides to pray to St. Monica for the virtues and graces with which she excelled. Today, sons, husbands, and parents-in-law should pray for their mothers, wives, and daughters-in-law that God bless them with the virtues that Saint Monica abounded in. And then today’s holiday will fulfill its role.

Saint Monica, mother, wife, and daughter-in-law, pray for us!

Traditional moralists, who believe in the wisdom of nothingness, appear to their opponents as dull, monotonous, stern, and cursing damners. Well, believe them, they are not. They are rebels because it remains in the age of relativism orthodoxy as the only possible form of rebellion; these rebels also sing during the fight. They constantly keep hope in themselves until the end, even when they condemn our civilization. All the prophetsoffer hope. The patient has not died yet.

Patient, Western Civilization, maybe really soon he will die, perhaps a little later, but once for sure, because everything human is mortal. However, it is not necessary that she died immediately. On the slippery slope, along which they plunge into the abyss, “someone” has carved handles, which, if we catch it in time, we can still go back. As long as our single will is not just some kind of illusion, we are free to return, regret, turn around, and turn back the hands of the clock, which shows the wrong time. Unless we are victims of ourselves and our tools, like Dr. Frankenstein, as long as we are not slaves to time and masters of moralizing, we can still go back. No one with a flaming sword will close the way to paradise, which has long been settled. The history of the Israeli nation, our ancient history of the archetype, are interwoven with countless examples of the nation’s repentance and its return to God’s favor despite many, almost irreversible failures.

And God, like the loving father of the prodigal son, constantly waiting for our return. For this reason, we traditional and old-fashioned seafarers can smile because we are rebels and we have hope. However, relativists have no reason to smile. In his work The Fall, Camus briefly summarized: “Sometimes I think about what future historians will say about us. A simple sentence will suffice: they were fornicators, and they read newspapers.” We traditionalists “do not read The Times; we read eternity”, as Thoreau advises. And it is in her that we read the most wonderful news for us: God decided that we will make his bride.
A prevailing opinion is slowly disappearing: that traditional Virtue is uninteresting. It’s the opposite but the truth. Virtue will prevail. Virtue conquers the world.

What God planned, we will not change, and therefore will never change human nature. A person will starve from ordinary food repeatedly, and the stones will never be replaced with bread. It is the same with food for our spirit. A skeptic has the same digestion as a believer, only he does a different diet. He is not consciously looking for the right food to feed him, and he may find her only by chance. It can, for example, despise Mother Teresa’s faith, but he can no longer despise her when he once met her in person. These people do not know what Virtue is. They think it is something like a dried plum: old, wrinkled, and disgusting. By doing so, they essentially contrast Virtue and happiness however, it contradicts the comparisons of the oldest and the wisest philosophers and the discovery of the great moralists Plato and Aristo of the body and, last but not least, the content of Scripture.

They do not see Virtue’s winning campaign. However, the defenders of the virtues, who let themselves go, also made mistakes in part involve in a false dispute of concepts between Virtue and happiness, between Virtue and joy, Virtue and vigor; and who, somewhere along the way, lost the key to the victory of Virtue – to the pursuit of Virtue.
Medieval people knew how to be passionate about Virtue.
Today, however, it only seems bizarre, eccentric, and idiosyncratic. In the sixteenth century, Spencer could still portray Virtue as a beautiful lady. However, in Milton’s time, in the seventeenth century, divine virtues already appear cold, unpleasant, and unsympathetic, while vices, which were offered by the devil, enjoy more and more popularity and interest. Nietzsche generalized this contrast to the contrast between “Apollonian” cold reasoning, reason and truth and “Dionysian” explosiveness, passion, evil – and attraction. Well, Hannah Arendt he is right when he writes about the “emptiness of evil” (in the work Eichmann in Jerusalem), and members of the literary discussion group at Oxford University (among others, Lewis, Tolkien and Williams) point out that goodness is much more burdensome than evil, although others write otherwise. Liberals have a hard time getting fired up for Virtue because they have always tended to identify with general things like social justice, which is correct, but very distant. Conservatives rather identify with loyalty to a smaller whole – family, neighbors, and marriage, in short, to what we feel an irrational passion for. For ages, we have been created equally for emotional passion and reasonableness. And since liberalism gives us no room for zeal in virtues, only in vices, and conservatism shows zeal for Virtue, it is clear. If the world became what it was twenty years ago, when heroic virtues fascinated it, we can say he won.

Patron: farmers, tailors, shepherds, vintners, tanners, bookbinders, butchers, miners, bakers, shoemakers, dealers in oil, cheese, and salt; Maastricht, Frankfurt and Pilsen; invoked against skin and nervous diseases

Attributes: head, baptism, skin, knife

CURRICULUM VITAE

He was born in Cana of Galilee and identified by Jesus as a true and guileless Israelite. He became an apostle and, after the sending of the Holy Spirit, preached the gospel in several places. The last was Armenia, where he was flayed and executed.

A TRUE ISRAEL IN WHICH IS NO DECEPTION

He came from Cana and was a friend of Philip, who brought him to Christ. The apostle John gives him the name Nathanael. Bar-Tolmai is a surname that translates as “son of Tolmai,” while Natanael means “God gave.”

Bartholomew and Philip lived in anticipation of the coming of the Messiah, therefore, after meeting Jesus, Philip looked for Bartholomew and said to him: “We have found the one about whom Moses in the Law and the prophets wrote, Jesus, the son of Joseph of Nazareth.” Nathanael objected to him: “From Nazareth? What good can come from there?” Filip answers him: “Come and see for yourself!” Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him and said of him: “Behold, a true Israelite in whom there is no guile.” Nathanael said to him: “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.” (John 1:45-48)

At those words, Bartholomew recognized Jesus as the Son of God and the King of Israel, to which he also immediately confessed. Jesus confirmed his faith with the promise of more excellent proofs than the fact that he saw him under the fig tree.

Bartholomew became one of the twelve apostles, a witness and follower of Christ. After sending the Holy Spirit, he preached the gospel in several places. Historian Eusebius mentions his activities in India. Experts argue that this could mean Ethiopia and Arabia, often mentioned in connection with his gospel preaching. Indeed, India was referred to as “Happy Arabia.” According to tradition, he left an Aramaic copy of the Gospel of Matthew there.

St. Johannes Chrysostomus proves that ap. Bartholomew preached about Christ with great success on his apostolic journeys, and the heathen were astonished at the rapid change in the manners of those who believed. Purity, temperance, and other virtues are emphasized.

Somewhere it is stated that Bartholomew passed from Arabia to Phrygia, where he met ap. Philip and further visited Lycaonia. The oldest biographies agree on the place of his martyrdom, which became Armenia.

The legend tells of the miracle of Bartholomew’s prayer, which recovered the daughter of the Armenian king Polymers from possession. Bartholomew’s words convinced the king, his court, and his subjects to accept Christianity. However, the king’s obstinate brother Astyages had this apostle imprisoned and tortured, allegedly in Derbent, later Shirvan, on the shores of the Caspian Sea.

The skin was flayed from his body while he was alive, so the knife is his main attribute. Somewhere, there is talk of flying, and then he is said to have been crucified. His beheading is also mentioned somewhere, but cutting off the head of the crucified was not a custom.

His remains were transferred to Dura in Mesopotamia and then to Phrygia in Asia Minor in the 5th century. At the end of the next century, they were transported to the island of Lipari near Sicily and, in 809, to Benevento in southern Italy. In the end, they were the German emperor Otto III. They were transferred to Rome, where he had a church dedicated to St., built for them in 983 on the Tiber island. Bartholomew.

There was also some doubt whether the relics handed over to the emperor in Benevento were all genuine. Allegedly, the honest Bartholomew’s skull appeared in the 13th century. in Frankfurt am Main. Under Emperor Charles IV, the cathedral in Prague also acquired part of his remains.

RESOLUTION, PRAYER

Bartholomew’s confession followed a conversation in which he recognized that Jesus had loved him long before that. I can experience the same knowledge during inner prayer, ending with a confession like Bartholomew. However, I will also try so that Jesus can be satisfied with my life, which should be a testimony to others.

God, strengthen our faith so that we may be sincerely devoted to Your Son like St. Bartholomew, and through the intercession of this apostle, grant that Your Church may become a sign and instrument of salvation for all nations. Through Your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, for He lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit forever and eve.

Saint Rose was born in Lima, Peru, on April 20, 1586, as her parents’ tenth child. Rose had 12 siblings. Her father, Gaspar Florez, and her mother, Mária Olivia, were high-ranking nobles with considerable wealth. They emigrated to Latin America long before she was born. The very circumstances of Rosenka’s birth were miraculous. Her mother was often in danger of death due to unrest on the border, but she was never in danger during her pregnancy with Rose. Rose herself was born “encased” in a double placenta, much like a beautiful pink rose that slowly develops from bright green leaves. She was baptized with the name Isabela, but this name should not have belonged to her. Her mother understood three months after her birth that the name she had chosen for her daughter was not pleasing to God. In a strange vision, as she bent down to face her sleeping daughter, she saw a beautiful rose floating above her cradle. Admonished in this way, she named her daughter after this flower. Even though the archbishop of Lima gave her the same name as her Burmese, Rose still felt a particular sadness whenever she was addressed in this way. It was not the name she had received at baptism, and she feared it might serve her vanity. She worried about her name until the Mother of God gave her the will of God. One day, she went to the Church of the preaching brothers, threw herself at the feet of the Holy Mother in the rosary chapel, and poured out the confusion she felt. Mother God accepted her request, comforted Ruženka, and asked her to take the name Ruža. The Virgin Mary told her that this name of the rose pleased her Son Jesus Christ and that as proof of love, she would be called the Rose of Saint Mary from now on. Her childhood was extraordinarily patient and obedient, which strongly resembled that of Saint Catherine of Siena. It is recorded that when she was still a child, she had already given evidence of this heroic patience in suffering, which soon became the rule of her life.

Someone inadvertently slammed the box shut and caught little Rose’s thumb. Instead of starting to scream loudly and piteously like the other children, she made every effort to conceal the suffering she had received. When her injury worsened and she lost part of her nail, a surgeon was forced to amputate her thumb. She went through the suffering and pain of this operation with such extraordinary sweetness that the doctor remarked that she never once cried out nor even changed the expression on her face, which would be considered natural, even in a person who has been suffering for years. Rose began with the ascetic by living at an incredibly young age. She was only five when she decided to fast every other day. At age six, she hid needles in the holiday crown she wore in her hair to suppress vanity. She was sincerely afraid of sin, so strong renunciation and physical sacrifices were a matter of course for her. Her little brother was an instrument from God to teach her to judge the vain things of this transitory world. One day, he was playing with her, accidentally throwing a lot of mud on her beautiful, wavy hair. Rose was groomed and dressed neatly and exceptionally nicely, so she was naturally proud of her appearance and angry with her brother. However, her brother said with an unexpectedly deep voice that seemed to come from God himself: “My dear sister, do not be angry with me for this accident. The curled hair of girls are like beautiful cords that surround people’s hearts and draw them unhappily into the eternal flame.” Rose listened to these words as if they were spoken by a holy preacher of God or as words from heaven. She immersed herself, gave up this world forever, and devoted herself to God. From this moment, she received the gift of prayer. Day and night, she devoted herself to this holy conversation with God and did not interrupt her prayers, even while asleep. During the rest, when she slept, her imagination painted so many vivid pictures of her Lord and Savior to entertain her mind that she might say she never ceased to pray. In this way, she received a call from God to follow the path of St. Catherine of Siena. Immersed in the Holy Spirit, she consecrated herself with an irrevocable vow to her pure God Almighty at the age of five. She solemnly vowed never to have any other partner but the Lord Himself.

Rose grew into a lovely girl. Therefore, her parents wanted to marry her to a rich young man. But she was firmly determined to give priority to the spiritual life. To thwart her planned marriage, which her mother stubbornly adhered to, Ruženka cut off her beautiful, long hair but also allegedly rubbed her face with pepper and soaked her hands in lime. She was afraid that her beauty might continue to tempt others. She was habitually rubbing her eyes with pimento, a type of hot Indian pepper, after which her eyes were red as fire and so painful that she could not bear the light. She replied to her mother, who was angry with her: “It would be better for me, my dear mother, to be blind all my life than to be forced to look at the vanities of the world!” When she was asked to marry by the only son of a certain most eminent lady of the city, she went to Canto, a small village near one of the most famous mines in Peru, and remained there for four years without leaving the house. The proposal was very agreeable to her mother, who wished to provide for her family in this way. Still, Ruženka gave her virginity to God and, with perfect rejection of the idea of ​​marriage, openly declared that she would never consent. She decided to join the order to defeat the plans of the enemies of her purity. Two miracles confirmed this calling. She doubted her vocation and intended to enter the Incarnation monastery, where religious sisters were already expecting her. But before she set out on her journey, she went to say goodbye to our blessed Virgin in the rosary chapel belonging to the monastery of St. Dominica. She remained on her knees in prayer for a long time at the foot of the altar, and when she had finished her prayer, she tried to get up but could not. She called her brother to help her, but suddenly she felt a hand that grabbed her sharply, and no one could take her away from the place. She immediately understood that it was a sign from heaven not to leave Saint Dominic. She decided to enter the third order of St. Dominika and could stand up and leave the chapel without any problems. The second of the signs that confirmed her calling was nature itself. On the vast plains of Lima, countless butterflies fly. One in particular is beautifully colored in black and white, exactly the colors of the Order of St. Dominica. One of these butterflies flew in and kept circling the Sleeping Beauty. Again, she followed the steps of St. Catherine of Siena and entered the third order of St. Dominica. Her wish finally came true on August 10, 1606, and she became a Dominican Tertiary. She was 20 years old then. She set up a wooden hut in the garden of her birthplace, where she lived and prayed ever since. She almost stopped eating and rarely slept. She endured the most severe mental and physical pains with unspeakable patience. She repeatedly received manifestations of mystical graces. She often prayed: “Lord, multiply my suffering and my love!” In the small room, which she built with the help of her brother from bare boards and sycamore leaves, she had only a modest, ascetic bed, which consisted of seven logs connected by straps, and she poured shards and pebbles between them. She read spiritual books and long prayers in this refuge, bringing her various mystical experiences. In moments of her deepest devotion to God, she wore a hair shirt and a forged crown of thorns and scourged herself with leather thongs. She hardly took food and slept only two to three hours a day; the rest of the time, she devoted herself to work or prayer. Her deep spirituality and extreme penance aroused astonishment and outrage among the inhabitants of Lima. Some considered her crazy, while others, on the contrary, began to visit her. She never stopped believing in what Jesus Christ entrusted her in her visions: achieving God’s grace and salvation is impossible without suffering and renunciation. The most frequent object of her meditation was the cross of Christ, towards which her gaze was often directed. She went to take care of the sick, the impoverished, and the marginalized. Physically tortured herself, she survived fifteen long years of spiritual dryness and despondency. She experienced immense physical and mental suffering amid mystical experiences. She sacrificed all her suffering for the conversion of sinners. She received such sweet and noble consolation, especially from the words of the Lord himself: “Rose of my heart, be my Bride!” and a wonderfully intimate relationship with the Guardian Angel, Saint Catherine of Siena, and the Mother of God. She often went for seven weeks without drinking water or any other liquid. And towards the end of her life, she lived for several consecutive days without eating or drinking at all. Her supernatural abstinence from food was well known to all the inhabitants of Lima: it was generally believed that she passed weeks without eating or drinking and that when circumstances compelled her to appease the burning heat consumed her, she drank warm water to mitigate the pleasure of cold water. She was not even satisfied with the physical fasting itself. Streams of blood flowed daily from her body caused by iron chains and other instruments of penance. After becoming a religious, she was not satisfied with the usual discipline. She made herself two iron chains, with which she inflicted such terrible wounds every night that her blood sprinkled the wall and flowed into the middle of the room. She died seven times: for her sins, for the souls who commit sins, for the pressing needs of the Church, for the time when Peru or Lima was threatened with great calamity, for the souls in purgatory, for those in agony of death, and as compensation for insults against God.

When her confessor, disturbed by the number of deaths, ordered her to stop using iron chains, she wrapped them in three rows and wore them on her body. She locked the chain on a padlock and threw the key in a corner where no one could find it. However, the chain soon passed through her skin and dug so deep into her flesh that her wounds remained visible until her death. One night, she felt such a terrible agony of pain that she fainted and was almost on the verge of death. Marianna, the helper, who woke up to her screams, quickly ran to her aid. Rose was now forced to tell the truth and asked her to help remove the chain before her mother entered the room. However, Mariana could not break the padlock. So she ran into the garden to find a stone and somehow broke it. While she was gone, Rose feared that her mother would enter the room. She began to pray. When Mariana entered the room with the stone, she saw a padlock separated from the chain links! Ruženka managed to do everything without much pain and loss of blood. Her wounds were almost healed, but she tightened the chain again. But as soon as it began to be carved into her body, the confessor ordered her to send it to him. She obeyed but suffered the same pain and blood loss as before. After her death, Maria of Usategui kept several embers of this bloody chain, which emitted such a sweet fragrance that everyone recognized it as supernatural. In addition to this chain, she wore the heaviest hairpin full of needles. She scourged herself with nettles and thorns, causing numerous wounds and blisters to form on her body. Tireless in her desire for pain, she decided to more accurately copy her Lord and Savior, whom they crowned with thorns. When she was young, she made a pewter crown with small, sha,rp nai, ls. She wore it for several years of innocent life. Later, she made a crown of silver plates as wide as three fingers, in which she placed three rows of sharp spikes, representing the 33 years of Jesus’ life on earth. She cut her hair so the spikes would dig into her head better. She wore the crown under her robes so that even the slightest movement of her body would cause these iron spikes to injure her body in 99 places. Every Friday, she tied this crown tighter and lower on her forehead until she pierced the cartilage of her ears in many places. From childhood, she invented many ways to make her bed harder until her mother forced her to sleep with it. Even then, she continued to be humble and obedient. As soon as the mother fell asleep, she gathered the feathers from the side of the bed she was lying on to lie on the wooden structure and put a stone under her head. After a long time, her mother, though displeased, allowed her to sleep as she pleased. Then, she made a bed in the form of a chest and filled it with rough stones of various sizes. However, the bed seemed too soft to her, so she added three bundles of wood and filled the space with three hundred pieces of broken tiles, which were placed so that the body was injured and torn. She never trembled in this terrible cross while the blood seemed to freeze in her veins. On these occasions, Jesus Christ often appeared to her to soothe her and speak in sweet and gracious words: “Remember, my child, that the cross on which I died for you was heavier, narrower, and more painful than the one on which you lie. Please think of the bile I drank because of you and remember the nails that pierced my hands and feet. Only then will you feel comfort in the terrible pains you are experiencing on your bed.” To live completely apart from men, she often stayed only in a small hermitage in her father’s garden, where she experienced many visions and miracles. Among others, Jesus Christ once appeared to her and took her as his bride in the presence of the Blessed Virgin, saying to her: “Rose of my heart, I take you as my bride.” Through spiritual prayer, in which she exercised herself in the deepest love of God, she attained the closest and most intimate union with Him and was never out of His holy presence. The birds themselves felt the influence of her sanctity and joined her devotion. One day, when she was ill, a little bird came and sat by the window of her room and began to sing, which so captivated her that she sincerely pondered the goodness of God who had given this little bird such sweet notes to sing praises to God. This put her in an ecstasy, in which she remained from nine in the morning until evening. In the year of her death, another bird whose song sounded the most beautiful sat in front of her room during the entire Lent period. As soon as the sun rose, blessed Rosa ordered him to light a fire in praise of God. He obeyed her and raised his voice, singing with all his might, until this servant of Christ, who did not want to be left behind, offered God a song of praise and blessing. She began to sing a hymn to his glory very sweetly. When she had finished, this little choir began again, and together, they formed a chorus in which they sang the praises of God alternately. At six o’clock, she released him until the next day. He always arrived on time.Our Saint loved Jesus Christ and His Most Holy Mother, the Virgin Mary, Saint Catherine of Siena, and her angel with such genuine love that they rewarded her. They visited her often and spoke to her in a friendly tone. They taught her how to gain victory over the evil spirits that appeared to her and tempted her to sin, appearing to her in special apparitions. This is how she learned that she was to die on St. Bartholomew’s Day. She did not know that she would die after reaching the age of 31, nor did she know that in the last moments of her life, she would have to endure incredible suffering. On August 1, she entered her room at night in perfect health. But at midnight, she was heard crying piteously, and the wife of Don Gonzalez, into whose house she had moved before her illness, found her half dead on the ground, cold, pulseless, motionless, scarcely breathing. The doctors came to see her in this condition and, together with her confessor, who feared that her humility prevented her from making clear the nature and extent of her sufferings, ordered her out of obedience to describe her feelings and pains to the doctors as best she could. “It seems to me,” she said, “as if a ball of fire had driven into my temples, descended to my legs, and passed through my left side over my right side in an intolerable heat—as if my heart had been torn asunder by a flaming dagger. The invisible hand that holds it sometimes pierces me from head to foot with it, and then walks from side to side and carves the form of a cross on my body with this instrument, which burns me with the hottest fire. I feel as if my bowels were being torn open with flaming tongs, and my head burns as if it were hot coals taken from a burning furnace. In fact, I believe that when I die, they will find my bones burned to ashes and the marrow dried up by the burning heat I endured.” All those present agreed that these sufferings were miraculous, and Ružena told them they were right and meant to be understood. ; Because they all came only from God and were sent as a special favor so she could become more like her Lord and Master. Although she had suffered so much, she begged her Divine Bridegroom not to ease her pain. On the contrary, she begged Him with all her heart to intensify them, to punish her severely for the crimes which she believed constituted sin in the eyes of God’s majesty. The merciful God had compassion on His servant and was moved by her tears and groans. He kept her mind sane to the last breath amid the depressions which the fever of the internal organs sent to her brain and which caused frequent delirium. Another kindness he imparted to her was her ability to express her feelings, although she suffered greatly. During her last days, she was often seen as if unconscious or in an ecstasy in which her soul seemed to leave her body to become more united with God. Despite extreme thirst, she did not taste a single drop of water to quench it. Following the example of her groom, she only asked for bile and vinegar to increase her suffering.During her illness, she usually confessed her sins every day. And to better prepare herself for death, she made a general confession of her whole life, with such signs of deep resentment that her sorrow and lamentations were heard in the adjoining rooms. She received the holy Viaticum and the last anointing on the third day. When the Blessed Sacrament was brought to her, she changed color. Her face lit up and burned, and amid the joy that filled her, she fell into ecstasy. After receiving this bread of angels, she remained motionless and completely rested in God. Almighty God revealed to her that her soul would immediately go to heaven after leaving the body and would not have to suffer the pain of purgatory. She often let herself be heard that she was a Christian and wanted to live in the faith of the Church and that she was the daughter of the great Saint Dominic. As proof of this, she reverently kissed the scapular and always wore it when sick. To imitate the love of the Son of God, she prayed with all her heart for those who offended her by word or deed, asking him to fill them with his graces and show them the same mercy that she experienced. Holding the holy cross in her hand, she could not calm herself without kissing it, softly repeating: “Father, forgive them.” She begged for mercy for all the servants in the house with tears in her eyes. She told Don González about herself that he would soon be freed from this unfortunate sinner (she meant herself) who had caused so much trouble and trouble to her whole family. Everything was translated into tears in the deep humility of this bride of Jesus Christ. At midnight of her death, she heard a mysterious noise that announced the coming of the Lord. She accepted him joyfully and asked her brother to remove the support from under her head and place a piece of wood in its place. As if she expected that these pieces of wood would also die on the cross. Twice she said: “Jesus, be with me, Jesus, be with me!” Immediately after that, her pure soul left her mortal body and flew into the bosom of God to receive the heavenly inheritance prepared for her from eternity. She died on August 24, the feast of St. Bartholomew in 1617, aged 31 years and five months. to fill them with his graces and show them the same mercy she experienced. Holding the holy cross in her hand, she could not calm herself without kissing it, softly repeating: “Father, forgive them.” She begged for mercy for all the servants in the house with tears in her eyes. She told Don González about herself that he would soon be freed from this unfortunate sinner (she meant herself) who had caused so much trouble and trouble to her whole family. Everything was translated into tears in the deep humility of this bride of Jesus Christ. At midnight of her death, she heard a mysterious noise that announced the coming of the Lord. She accepted him joyfully and asked her brother to remove the support from under her head and place a piece of wood in its place. As if she expected that these pieces of wood would also die on the cross. Twice she said: “Jesus, be with me, Jesus, be with me!” Immediately after that, her pure soul left her mortal body and flew into the bosom of God to receive the heavenly inheritance prepared for her from eternity. She died on August 24, the feast of St. Bartholomew in 1617, aged 31 years and five months. to fill them with his graces and show them the same mercy she experienced. Holding the holy cross in her hand, she could not calm herself without kissing it, softly repeating: “Father, forgive them.” She begged for mercy for all the servants in the house with tears in her eyes. She told Don González about herself that he would soon be freed from this unfortunate sinner (she meant herself) who had caused so much trouble and trouble to her whole family. Everything was translated into tears in the deep humility of this bride of Jesus Christ. At midnight of her death, she heard a mysterious noise that announced the coming of the Lord. She accepted him joyfully and asked her brother to remove the support from under her head and place a piece of wood in its place. As if she expected that these pieces of wood would also die on the cross. Twice she said: “Jesus, be with me, Jesus, be with me!” Immediately after that, her pure soul left her mortal body and flew into the bosom of God to receive the heavenly inheritance prepared for her from eternity. She died on August 24, the feast of St. Bartholomew in 1617, aged 31 years and five months.

In my Father’s house are many mansions › Jn 14, 2.  Since we commemorate the coronation of the Virgin Mary a week after the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, let’s stay with the Marian theme. When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger reflected on this topic, he pointed out that today’s teaching about the Assumption of the Virgin Mary is somewhat foreign to us. We perceive almost all words in this context as foreign and cannot perceive their meaning: Mary, heaven, glory. We understand only one word well—the body. However, if we start from this one word, which is understandable, the possibility opens up for us to reach everything. What is affirmed here is faith in the body and, thus, in the earth, matter, and the future of everything. The Church, seemingly hostile to the body, seems to have sung a new hymn to the body with this dogma. In this sense, the human body is related to heaven and, thus, to God. 

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger explains it this way: “This statement is very timely: today there is a danger that the discovery of the body will turn into dehumanization. In seeking to possess it freely, it is removed from the sphere of moral responsibility and is reduced to a mere thing that can be used without the guarantee of human relations. The human body is transformed into matter; a new dualism arises, the destructive effects of which we have already experienced. Only when the wholeness of the human being is completely preserved, only then does the future for the body open up. Only when the human dignity of the body is recognized will the spirit retain its human character; only when we know how to appreciate a person in the light of God’s promise, we give honor to the body.” 

Therefore, the true rooting of God’s action in profound physicality is very important. It began with the birth of the Virgin Mary, culminating in the Lord’s resurrection, and the eyes of God through his Son could be realized in the eyes of the first Christian woman. And this is how all the words of the dogma are connected: first heaven and body, now also Mary and glory, body and heaven. The name Mary refers to everything concretely realized in a simple woman who calls herself a humble servant (cf. Lk 1:48). Let’s not forget that the glory rested on her. Not the queen, but the humble servant is glorified. Not to power, but to faith is the promised future.

Real name Jozef (Giuseppe) Sarto

Saint

Holiday: August 21

* June 2, 1835, Riese, today Riese Pio X near Treviso, Italy

† August 20, 1914, Rome

Pontificate: 1903 – 1914

Meaning of the name: pious, religious (lat.)

St. Pius X was born on June 2, 1835, in the village of Riese near Castelfranco Veneto in the Diocese of Treviso as the second of ten children. His father was a postman and a farmer. Jozef liked to minister, wanted to learn, and had great talent. Even though his parents were poor, he managed to graduate from the grammar school in Castelfranco and Padua, where he continued studying philosophy and theology. A native of Riese, the Venetian patriarch Jakub Monica also gave him a place in the seminary. Jozef was ordained a priest in 1858 in Castelfranco. He worked as a chaplain in Tombolo, from 1867 as a parish priest in Salzano, and in 1875 he was called as a canon and vicar general in Treviso. In addition, he also taught in the seminary. In 1884, Pope Leo XIII. appointed as bishop in Mantua and in 1893 as patriarch and cardinal in Venice. He was elected Pope in 1903. According to the “Malachi Prophecy,” he was supposed to be “ignis ardens,” a roaring fire. As he said during his election, he took Pius after the holy popes who were “mighty and kindly protected” the Church. He chose “Renew everything in Christ” as his motto.

Predecessor Pius X. Leo XIII. Focused on restoring the Church’s external relations, Pius X decided on internal reform. In the first days after the election, he ordered a new codification of church law. In 1908, the Acta Apostolicae Sedis began to be published – a circular for the whole Church, in which statements and information about the happenings in the Church were published. It is a common practice not only of the Holy See but of every diocese. Pius X had excellent organizational and reforming talent. Administration became much more straightforward; he eliminated clutter and unnecessary bureaucracy. He proposed new methods and means for pastoral care. He cared a lot about the holiness and education of priests. He reformed the liturgical music, removed the long interminable preludes during the liturgy, and paid great attention to the Gregorian chant. A college for church music was established in Rome.

At his initiative, a new edition of the Roman Missal and the Roman Breviary was published. The Pope had an excellent feeling for errors and anti-Catholic directions. He was adamant in faith and morals, but he tried to lead strays to the right path with kindness and goodness. He drew attention to the so-called modernism that began to spread. He radically rejected it in 1907 with his encyclical Pascendi.

On the other hand, however, many did not understand the Pope correctly. When condemning modernism, they went to the other extreme (integralism) – they opposed any adaptation of the Church to modern life. They wanted to enter worldly affairs with the decisive word as well. However, the Pope did not do politics. He was only interested in the purity of faith and the renewal of religious life. He tried to separate the Church from the state. He issued a decree that no secular power should interfere in the election of the Pope. Even during his election, the Austrian Emperor František Jozef interfered in the election, announcing an “exclusive objection” to the election of Cardinal Rampolla, who was most likely to be elected.

As his role model, the Pope had the parish priest of Ars, John Maria Vianney, whom he declared blessed in 1905. He had a picture of him on his desk. He also declared other zealous priests to be blessed – St Johann Eudes and Klement Maria Hoffbauer. He greatly respected the work of priests. He himself was a zealous pastor. As a bishop, he helped his priests with confession and preaching. His speeches as the Pope were always clear and understandable, and you could feel the fatherly love and strictness in them. He was very zealous for respect for the Eucharist and the renewal of spiritual life. The much-mentioned “active participation of the laity in the liturgy” began during his era. His goal was “so that people do not pray at Mass, but pray Mass.” He also called for frequent St. reception. He allowed the children to receive the first St. communion as soon as possible, which was perceived already the difference between ordinary bread and St. receiving. Until then, they had to wait until they were fourteen. An incident from the childhood of this Pope is mentioned when he wanted to receive the Body of Christ but could not because he had not yet reached the prescribed age of 14 years. When he begged the bishop to allow him after all, the bishop said, “Once you become pope, you can change it.” It happened…

Towards the end of his life, he felt that war was approaching. On August 2, 1914, he issued an apostolic letter expressing great pain over the unrest and called on people to cling to Christ, the Prince of Peace. Shortly after that, he got pneumonia. The disease continued rapidly and insidiously. The Pope died on August 20, 1914. He was not embalmed and buried in the Vatican crypts at his request. His testament was written: “I was born poor, I lived poor, I die poor.” He was declared blessed by Pope Pius XII in 1951 and as a saint three years later.

Pius X was the greatest reformer after Pope St. Pius V- (1566-1572). Several historians say he completed the reform of the Council of Trent (1545-1563). He reformed the missal, breviary, church law, music, sacramental life, seminaries, biblical and theological studies, and the Roman Curia.

Holiday: August 20

* around 1090 Fontaine-lès-Dijon, today part of the city of Dijon, France

† August 20, 1153 Clairvaux, today Longchamp-sur-Aujon, France

Attributes: skull, dog, devil, book of religious rules, beehive

Patron of beekeepers, waxers, bartenders; in obsessions, childhood diseases; at the hour of death

St. Bernard, painting from the 16th century. In Troyes Cathedral

Abbot and teacher of the Church, he was born around 1090 in Fontaines-les-Dijon, France, as the third of seven children of the Burgundian noble Tezelin at the family castle. Together with his four brothers and about 30 young men, Bernard entered the 22-year-old 1112 to the reformed monastery of Citeaux, the first monastery of the Cistercian order, founded in 1098 by Robert of Molesme. Just three years later, at the age of 25, he became the founding abbot of the Clairvaux monastery. During his lifetime, he founded almost 70 other monasteries.

Bernard of Clairvaux, who went down in history as the “second founder” of the Cistercian order, maintained relations for the next four decades until his death with almost all the great personalities of his time. Not only were popes, bishops, priests, and brothers of all orders interested in his advice, but he also had contact with the monarchs of different countries. He also became known as a fiery preacher of the crusades. Vezelay is inextricably linked to his name. Bernard delivered his first sermon on Easter in 1146 before Louis VII in this Burgundian basilica. He spoke so persuasively that the king and all the nobles assembled there eagerly accepted the cross from the hands of the abbot of Clairvaux. From Vézelay, Bernard went north of the country to Flanders and Rhineland. He was met with great enthusiasm everywhere.

Despite having all the opportunities for a ‘career’ in the church hierarchy, Bernard of Clairvaux remained humble and modest throughout his life. He embodied the ideal image of a monk, resolutely refusing all the honorary offices that were offered to him, such as appointment as bishop in Genoa and Milan. His commitment to his beliefs was unwavering, even in the face of disappointment. He experienced his worst disappointment when the second crusade, which he had enthusiastically supported, was wrecked in 1149. He never fully recovered from this pain, a testament to his deep commitment to his beliefs.

At the age of 63, Bernard of Clairvaux passed away on August 20, 1153, after a severe stomach ailment. His death marked the end of a life dedicated to the Church and its teachings. He was buried in Cluny Abbey, but today his grave is in Clairvaux, a fitting resting place for a man who had such a profound impact on the Church.

What respect this monk enjoyed not only in his time but also among church scientists and scholars of all centuries is shown by the epithets that Bernard of Clairvaux received:

• The arch father of European sentiment (Friedrich Heer)

• The leader and judge of his time (Jozef Lortz)

• The religious genius of his of the time (Adolf von Harnack)

In addition, he was given the title “doctor melfifluus” (“honey-flowing” teacher) for his zealous way of preaching. Pope Alexander III. declared Bernard a saint on January 18, 1174—Pope Pius VIII. He was appointed by 1830 as a teacher of the Church.

On images from the 15th century. He is sometimes seen with the devil on a chain as a sign of overcoming all temptations. Such a statue from the 15th century is in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. He also wields a cross, a dead man’s skull, the instruments of suffering, a rosary, or a white dog, which points to the legend that Bernard’s mother had a dream before his birth that she would give birth to a white dog that would raise its voice against its enemies.